8 Things or OraBlog Tag Round 2

Jake over at Oracle AppsLab has started a game of tag, which involves writing 8 things about you people might not know and then tagging 6 friends to do the same, creating some sort of blog network monster. This is like when you go to a training class and they decide to chuck a ball around and whoever catches it has to introduce themselves and then throw the ball to somebody else - anyone else been there? They usually say 'just tell us your name and one interesting fact about yourself'. There's always one guy (almost always male) who decides to give you his life story and his opinion on all sorts f things that you don't care about and certainly don't want to here his pearls of wisdom about. Oh, Now I'm being that guy... Here are my 8 things.

1. I was born in the UK and lived lived there until 2000 when Oracle moved me to San Francisco. My parents are form Liverpool (home of The Beatles) I was brought up in Wigan (Home of George Orwell) and lived in Leeds (Home of Henry Moore), Swindon (Home of the magic roundabout) and Reading (Home of Oracle UK).


2. I am one of seven children, I have 2 elder sisters, 3 older brothers and 1 younger brother. My parents have 20 grandchildren, I am responsible for 2 of those.


3. I spent a number of years in the entertainment industry, working as a sound and lighting engineer for gigs ranging from Thrash metal to Jazz, to Techno and everything in between. I got to see some great artists, B.B King, Art Blakey, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Paul Oakenfold and The Happy Mondays to name drop but a few. As Dan Norris noted in his 8 things, it can be very cool to be paid to sit backstage at gigs, it can also be mind numbingly dull starting at 8am and finishing at 4am and putting up with temperamental artists. I took a look at people who had been doing this for more than 5 years and they looked decidedly unhealthy, mentally unstable or both, so I got out.


4. I'm a snowboarder, not been quite so much since I became a father, but went a few weeks ago and still got down a black diamond fast enough to make my contact lenses vibrate and blur my vision (seriously that happens - try it). I'm not great at jumps and tricks, I mostly like to go as fast as I dare down very steep hills and that I think I'm pretty good at it. I trashed a snowboard once, on the SF Bay bridge. The roof rack had not been properly secured and as we picked up speed it flew off and lost a fight with an 18 wheeler truck. I put the pictures on my geocities page, which might give you a clue as to how long ago it was.


5. I am (according to my wife) an expert Vegan Chef, I am a meat eater, but my wife is Vegan and likes to eat, she thinks if she tells me I am a great cook I'll cook more often.


6. I am a big football fan(that is soccer, not that other football where you mostly use your hands), get up at stupid hours to watch or even just listen on internet radio to the mighty Everton. I am a rational man and clearly what 11 overpaid men do in a field 5,000 miles away should not influence my mood for the day/week/year, but it does.


7. I lived in Tim Dexter's garage for a while. Finding housing was tough in the height of dot com insanity and my apartment still wasn't ready when the hotel I was staying at were ready for me to leave. Tim was kind enough to put me up and we would skateboard to work together and then crank out the bug fixes and features like Netherlands EFT, contra charging and Italian Plafond for EMEA Localizations. Them were the days.


8. I have never passed my UK driving test, in fact I failed twice; spot of bother with roundabouts. The UK driving test is quite tough, but the California one really isn't. So when I got to California I passed first time and now I can drive on that license when I visit the UK and face roundabouts like this, which no test can prepare you for!

I will now tag Anthony Lai, Habib Gohar, Dylan Wan and Joe Gum